These 5 Effective Anger Management Techniques Work for Me

People around me knows that I am never the easiest person to get along whenever my temper flares up.

I used to fly into a rage when things go wrong. I still remember how I roared at one of my ex-colleagues over some very minor office politics. I am a rather timid person by nature but whenever something fuses up my anger, I would almost turn into a female version of Incredible Hulk and loud hurtful words would start shooting off my mouth. When things got worse, I would even bang the table or kick the chair as I walk away.

Well, that's me few years ago. :)

Fast-forward to 2016. Here I am typing this very post to share the few anger management techniques that have served me well over the last few years. Have the 5 techniques totally 'extinguish' the fire within me?

I would be lying if I say yes. Of course there are times when I still get "fired up" but the frequency of that happening has gone down by more than 80%.

80%? How do I know? Well, believe it or not, I do have a simple excel sheet to help me track the frequency of my anger blow-ups. I even journal down some of my thoughts on it, more on that later. Although these techniques are not perfect but when I start using them on a frequent basis, people around my life starts noticing the sweeter side of me, isn't that marvelous? :)

Ok, without much ado, lets get started and I sincerely hope these 5 techniques would be of great help to you too.

#1 - Deep & Slow Breathe Plus a Pint of  Positive Thoughts

This method doesn't really work all the time but trust me, it has 'saved me' from doing something rash or say something hurtful in quite a few occasions. It helps a lot when I see something that angers me right away.

For example, whenever I see careless mistakes on homework or test papers done by my kiddo, I would take deep breaths and tell myself to let it go. We have all been careless when we were younger and we survived, didn't we? Positive thoughts like these got me going so far...:)

But of course, if there is something that is fundamentally wrong, I will not choose to ignore it, I will try to find ways and means to resolve it. Doing positive thoughts do not apply to things that are problematic.

Try not to live with problems, solve them.

#2 - Exercise

I am not 100% sure about this but having adequate exercise do help a bit as I slowly discover. I try to exercise up to 4 times a week if possible and I notice that on days when I exercise, I am better able to control my emotion and hence less angry moments for me. :)

What exercises do I do, I heard you ask? Well, any form of exercise should do as long as it makes you sweat a little bit. For me, I personally like brisk walking and cycling. We have a cycling bike at home shared by hubby and myself.

#3 - Change of Environment a.k.a Isolation

This works especially well during heated arguments or facing someone you are angry with.

Whenever I gets angry with someone, I would excuse myself and walk out of the room or house. I would isolate myself and usually after about 5 to 10 minutes my anger would cool off. And if I happen to be in the office, I would go inside an empty meeting room or somewhere to re-compose myself from there.

Strong and hurtful words which I wanted to say are gone by the time I cool off.

#4 - Soothing Music

This method is my favorite but I do not always have the chance to do it since I spent a huge portion of my time in the office. I do not think listening to music in the office would help me with work too much since my line of work requires a lot of thinking and analyzing.

But whenever possible, I would. If I happen to do overtime in the office, I would play some slow soothing music in the background while I slog away. Has it help with my angry? Not sure but I am sure it has help to unwind me during stressful days. And as you may already know, stress are what fuses anger most of time, no?

#5 - Anger Tracking

Like I mentioned earlier in the post, I do journal and track my 'angry' days or moments. By tracking them, I would be able to tell if a certain technique works for me or not. For example, I find that on day when I exercise early in the morning before I start work, the rest of the day are quite easy going for me and I do not really flare up much even when things do not go well for me.

I would pen down my thoughts on angry days and most of time, I wonder why I became so worked up and angry in the first place. Things weren't as bad as I thought after all. :)

The journal is also for me to know if there any improvement in my pursue for better anger management. Yes, looking at the journal, I am glad to say that my temper has definitely become better over the years since using the above techniques.


Clarification Notes

Before I end the post, I have to clarify that these 5 techniques may not work for you as everyone's mental condition is different. So please do not send me ugly email or write harsh comments complaining that these techniques do not work. While I do hope they are of help to you but if you are really unable to control your anger after using them, I would strongly suggest that you seek professional help.

For those who do experience success using the techniques I shared above, I would very much appreciate if you would share your experience with me. :)